The other night, MPs voted for seven hours on Budget 2012, part of which provides money for a bridge from Windsor to Detroit. Opponents call it a bridge to nowhere, which doesn’t say a lot for Detroit.

But the point is, in our system we are now wrapping up eight months of on-again, off-again debate on the budget, just like we do every year.

One of the important projects to come out of it is that bridge, which will allow us to continue to export billions of dollars in goods and services every year.

Constructing it will also put thousands of people to work over several years.

In the end, whether you support it or not, a decision has been made and a bridge will be built.

In the U.S., President Barack Obama hasn’t passed a budget since April 2009. In fact he may never pass anything ever again.

Yet, despite not having a new plan for the future, or maybe because of it, Congress and successive presidents have constructed brick by brick the largest debt ever known to human kind —$16 trillion. And they managed to do it while putting almost no one back to work.

To paraphrase Oklahoma oilman T. Boone Pickens: A dumb guy with a plan will beat a smart guy without a plan every time.

Unfortunately what we seem to have here are a bunch of dumb guys and no plan.

The weird thing is they aren’t dumb and they’re not all guys; they just play dumb people in that romantic comedy called American politics.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, but mostly you’ll cry because the U.S. is poised to go over a fiscal cliff with nothing to break its fall but a mattress full of Chinese money, which we hope the Chinese don’t pull away at the last moment.

All of this has the virtue of actually making our stuffy, hide-bound, 800-year-old system look sane.

In Canada, the Conservatives loaded up their budget with all kinds of odds and sods and then debated it for a scant eight months in the House, committee and through the media.

Critics hated it because it had too many things in it and it wasn’t debated long enough.

OK, thanks for pointing that out. But now it has passed and things will change because of it.

But there’s nothing new here.

When the Conservatives had a minority they somehow “bullied” the majority into passing their budgets, which included things like corporate tax cuts.

Sure, the opposition could have voted to stop them at any moment, but why go there?

In Canada, apparently, our problem is there’s too much action and not enough talk.

Yes, we could have some more parle in Parliament, but we could also have too much talk.

We could be America.

The Americans have talked about medicare reform and social security reform and tax reform for 30 years.

They’ve been all talk and no action and now there’s a $16 trillion spending monkey on their back and he’s calling the shots.

Talk isn’t cheap: U.S. has been all talk and no action for years and now faces a $16T deficit

The other night, MPs voted for seven hours on Budget 2012, part of which provides money for a bridge from Windsor to Detroit. Opponents call it a bridge to nowhere, which doesn’t say a lot for Detroit.

But the point is, in our system we are now wrapping up eight months of on-again, off-again debate on the budget, just like we do every year.

One of the important projects to come out of it is that bridge, which will allow us to continue to export billions of dollars in goods and services every year.

Constructing it will also put thousands of people to work over several years.

In the end, whether you support it or not, a decision has been made and a bridge will be built.

In the U.S., President Barack Obama hasn’t passed a budget since April 2009. In fact he may never pass anything ever again.